Bernie Goldberg

Sharyl Attkisson Explains the Media Bias to CNN (UPDATED GRAPHS)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Posted April 2014, Updated December 2017 and Today)

This comes via THE BLAZE, and is merely a confirmation of what many fair minded people already know, these are some quotes from Sharyl Attkisson during an interview on CNN. I think that CNN was a bit late to the party, maybe, feeling the hit to their ratings for not doing what Fox had already done with Miss Attkisson, that is, interview her:

Attkisson added in her interview with CNN’s “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter that while she never was discouraged from hard-hitting reports on the George W. Bush administration, when it came to her critical coverage of the Obama White House, CBS regularly balked.

[….]

“There are very sophisticated efforts to manipulate the images and the information that you see every day, in ways that you won’t recognize,” she said. “And I think we can all be a little more savvy about that.”

[….]

As for the differences between how CBS News brass treated and covered the Bush compared to the Obama administration, Attkisson noted that she “didn’t sense any resistance to doing stories that were perceived to be negative to the Bush administration by anybody ever.” But as for the Obama White House, she said “I have done stories that were not received well because people thought they would reflect poorly upon this administration.”

Attkisson went further, noting a “fairly well-discussed” topic inside CBS News “that there are some managers recently who have been so ideologically entrenched that there is a feeling and discussion that some of them, certainly not all of them, have a difficult time viewing a story that may reflect negatively upon government or the administration as a story of value.”

“So you’re saying they are liberal or Democrats?” Stelter asked.

“I don’t know what their registered party is, I just know that the tendency on the part of some of these managers who have key influences has been they never mind the stories that seem to, for example — and I did plenty of them — go against the grain of the Republican Party, but they do often seem to feel defensive about, almost, personally defensive about stories that could make the government look bad. Even if it’s something as simple as a government waste story that doesn’t pinpoint anybody in particularly and it takes on both parties. It seems as though some of them were sensitive about any story that might appear as though it criticizes the government.”

THE BLAZE continues the story with the video interview:

UPDATED WITH CURRENT GRAPHS (12-6-2020)

This brings us back to some older news, but refreshing it in our minds helps us remember the uphill battle we face. Lets compare the first 100-days of each of our recent presidents. And as you will see, the media was most fair (down the middle, so-to-speak) with Clinton. But as the Left gets more entrenched due to brainwashing at the university, you see a slide to one end:

Overall, roughly four out of ten stories, editorials and op ed columns about Obama have been clearly positive in tone, compared with 22% for Bush and 27% for Clinton in the same mix of seven national media outlets during the same first two months in office, according to a study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. HOT AIR mentioned the Pew Poll a while back, noting: “In their 100-day look released last week, Pew notes that Obama got twice as much good press as Bush and 50% more than Clinton.” They continue by quoting Pew:

The study found positive stories about Obama have outweighed negative by two-to-one (42% vs. 20%) while 38% of stories have been neutral or mixed.

When a broader universe of media—one that includes 49 outlets and reflects the more modern media culture of 2009, is examined, the numbers for Obama’s coverage are similar, though somewhat less positive and somewhat more negative. In this expanded universe of media—which includes news websites, additional regional and local newspapers, plus cable news, network morning news, and National Public Radio, 37% of Obama’s coverage has been positive, 40% neutral and 23% negative.

[….]

Pew also notes that the types of coverage Obama receives seems designed to cast a halo on him.  Unlike Bush (22%) and Clinton (26%), almost half of all news stories on Obama (44%) focus on his personal and leadership qualities.  Those are the kinds of stories that usually take a soft focus, work in generalities, and put public figures in the best possible light.

Obama’s coverage differs in another key way.  Much of the Obama coverage (31%) reports on what can only be called Obama’s campaign mode, in which Obama communicates directly with the American people.  Only 8% of Bush’s coverage focused on those efforts.  The media focused much more on Bush’s relationship with Congress and his legislative agenda.

In other words, the media has given us a heapin’ helping of fluff in the first 100 days, and very little in specifics.  They’re allowing Obama to manipulate them into campaign coverage rather than shine a light on his governance….

Well, Sharyl Attkisson, a 21-year vet at CBS confirms to us what Bernie Goldberg years ago already did. That CBS (obviously not the only network) has sold its soul to the gods of progressivism. While Fox should remain center-right, they should always allow the other voice an opportunity to speak. Scott Whitlock at NEWSBUSTERS, for instance, noted that “as of April 3, 2014, it’s been 140 days since the once-vaunted Nightline covered ObamaCare or any of the problems associated with it. Instead, the ABC News program has mostly avoided hard news, focusing on tabloid-heavy topics such as a city in Brazil that has become known as the “model factory.” So it isn’t just WHAT you report as it is what you choose to ignore that affects the public’s perception. Sad.

BTW, CNN doesn’t escape this malaise either.

UPDATED… (April 2014)

…with GATEWAY PUNDIT’S erudite [not always mind you] fishing into what was just revealed (that I missed):

What has not been widely known until today was the Democratic Party front group’s role in actually producing the news.

Attkisson: “Media Matters, as my understanding, is a far left blog group that I think holds itself out to be sort of an independent watchdog group. And yes, they clearly targeted me at some point. They used to work with me on stories and tried to help me produce my stories, and at some point…”

After Sunday’s broadcast, CNN posted a follow-up story that included a response from Media Matters. The response does not mention previous collaborations with Attkisson and CBS News in producing news reports for the network.

“We also sought comment from Media Matters; Attkisson said she thought it was possible that the liberal media monitoring group had been paid to discredit her. Media Matters responded:

‘Sharyl Attkisson is continuing a pattern of evidence-free speculation that started at the end of her tenure at CBS. We have never taken contributions to target her or any other reporter. Our decision to post any research on Attkisson is based only on her shoddy reporting’.”

There was no mention of Media Matters working with Attkisson to produce news reports for CBS News in the recent hit piece by David Brock’s Senior Fellow attack poodle Eric Boehlert posted at Media Matters on April 17th with the laughably dishonest headline (if Attkisson is to be believed):

Sharyl Attkisson Keeps Peddling Hollow ‘Liberal Media Bias’ Claim Former CBS Reporter Apparently Can’t Produce Any Proof For Conspiracy

CBS News should disclose which reports by the network were done in collaboration with the Democratic Party front group Media Matters. Attkisson should also disclose on which stories she collaborated with Media Matters.

…read more…

This will unfold more over the weeks to come, if the pressure is kept on CBS.

The Alt-Left Destroys Families

Published by Papa Giorgio

Dennis Prager notes the radicalism of the Left and their propensity to split families over politics. The “Alt-Left” calls on its lemmings to cut off contact with family that voted for Trump. Telling children to become orphans. Don’t know what the ALT-LEFT is, see:

The reason Leftists do this is politics BECOMES these people’s religion. And so, many myths of this religion are born, encapsulated around cultural Marxism (race-class-gender, the “Liberal Trinity”)

What a travesty the Left is. Here are some examples:

  • That’s not Shannon’s style. In a series of interviews in the days after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, the gruff 42-year-old actor, let his opinion about the election off its leash. “No offense to the seniors out there,” Shannon told Metro newspaper. “But if you’re voting for Trump, it’s time for the urn.” (He was referring to this map, illustrating Clinton’s 504 Electoral College vote advantage among 18-25 year-old voters.) In the same interview, Shannon offered advice to young people whose parents supported Trump: “You’re an orphan now. Don’t go home. Don’t go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Don’t talk to them at all. Silence speaks volumes.” (Michael Shannon on speaking out against Trump: “There’s nothing to lose these days”)
  • Somewhere around 1:30 a.m. the morning after the election — an insurgency of white, rural Americans lacking college degrees having taken its revenge upon itself and the rest of us by granting power to a self-styled strongman with a long record of race-baiting, tax-dodging, creditor-stiffing, self-dealing, model-chasing, lie-disseminating and the hosting of rallies where journalists were confined to pens and subjected to taunts and promises of death printed on T-shirts (please, commenters, do tell us again about the Hillary Clinton e-mails) — I staged the only act of protest left in my immediate control.
    I sent an e-mail to an in-law, telling him that his genial hockey buddy and Trump supporter friend Johnny was no longer welcome on Thanksgiving. I’m not a hater. Johnny’s a good guy. He means well and has done nice things for me. I’ve known him 20 years. But I can’t feed him any more of my potatoes. And I encourage everyone reading these words to defenestrate all the Johnnys in their lives, if they feel so inclined. Or better yet, they could emulate what the comic and patriot Wanda Sykes did last week in Boston, which is to condemn the rise of the strongman, brooking no generosity or period of cooling — and to flip right off anyone who doesn’t want to hear it. We are in new territory, but I have a feeling that people who follow demagogues will dislike getting flipped off by people who once took them into their homes in late fall, handed them a drink and told them about the new bird feeders. (After the election, break up: You voted for Trump? You’re off my list)
  • Democrats have dug in their heels, and in some cases are refusing to sit across the table from relatives who voted for President-elect Donald J. Trump, a man they say stands for things they abhor. Many who voted for Mr. Trump say it is the liberals who are to blame for discord, unfairly tarring them with the odious label of “racist” just because they voted for someone else. (Political Divide Splits Relationships — and Thanksgiving, Too)

This ALT-RIGHT being all the rage and of course the older ALT-LEFT not being known at all reminds me of something:

HOW LIBERAL BIAS WORKS

Chuck Todd, who hosts Meet the Press on NBC, opened his show the way he often does, by introducing his panel of journalists. There was Luke Russert of NBC News, and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report, and there was “Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post … and Ken Blackwell, conservative columnist and former Ohio Secretary of State.”

Did you catch it? Eugene Robinson isn’t the liberal columnist of the Washington Post. He’s simply Eugene Robinson ofthe Washington Post. But Ken Blackwell is identified as a “conservative columnist.”

This may strike members of the so-called mainstream media as one of those “what’s the big deal?” issues — even though it happens all the time both on TV and in print. But if  they’re feeling generous and concede that maybe it is somehow, some way, some kind of offense, it’s a misdemeanor of the lowest order. Journalistic jaywalking — at worst.

Sorry, but it is a big deal. A very big deal. One that goes straight to the heart of bias in the media.

Liberals, you see, don’t have to be identified. Liberals, as far as liberal journalists like Chuck Todd are concerned, aren’t controversial. They’re middle of the road. Moderate. Mainstream. Not so with conservatives. They need a warning label.

They put warning labels on packs of cigarettes and pesticides because they can be dangerous to your health. And, as far as many liberals – both in and out of the media — are concerned, conservatives need warning labels because their ideas can be dangerous to your health. I mean, if liberal views are middle of the road, moderate and mainstream, conservative views, being the opposite, must be fringe. And fringe ideas, in the liberal worldview, are most likely racist, homophobic and misogynist ideas, which are … well … dangerous!…

American Media Should Be Taking Notes (Al Jazeera`s Bias Exposed)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via The Blaze:

…Twenty-two of the network’s Cairo staff resigned on Monday. According to Gulf News, anchor Karem Mahmoud of Al Jazeera’s Mubasher Misr channel announced that the resignations were motivated by what he called “biased coverage” of the events leading up to the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned former President Morsi.

The news anchor revealed that Al Jazeera management would instruct each staff member to favor the Muslim Brotherhood in their broadcasts. According to Gulf News, Mahmoud said that “there are instructions to us to telecast certain news”.

[….]

Sultan al-Qassemi, a widely-followed media commentator from the United Arab Emirates tells the Daily Star, “Al-Jazeera Arabic in 2011 was squarely on the side of the anti-government [anti-Mubarak] protesters, today the channel is notorious for being the mouthpiece of the Brotherhood party.”

…read more…

Some other news Corps around town SHOULD be taking notes:

(Via Breitbart) Jeff Cohen has been all over cable news as a contributor, but for a time he worked as a senior producer for MSNBC. Monday, in the wake of the NSA spying scandal, Cohen lashed out at his former employer as the “official network of the Obama White House.”

When it comes to issues of U.S. militarism and spying, the allegedly “progressive” MSNBC often seems closer to the “official network of the Obama White House” than anything resembling an independent channel. With a few exceptions (especially Chris Hayes [10]), MSNBC has usually reacted to expanded militarism and surveillance by downplaying the abuses or defending them.

Had McCain or Romney defeated Obama and implemented the exact same policies, treating whistleblowers like Manning and Snowden as foreign espionage agents, one would expect MSNBC hosts to be loudly denouncing the Republican abuses of authority.

Cohen continues:

The World War I vintage Espionage Act, originally used to imprison socialists for making antiwar speeches, has been used by the administration against whistleblowers with a vengeance unprecedented in history: eight leakers have been charged  with Espionage under Obama, compared to three under all previous presidents.

More than all other presidents! Let that sink in… that’s MSNBC, how bout NPR? Bernie Goldberg helps us with this question:

$$$ QUOTE

Maybe Nina wished Tony Snow would get cancer as retribution from “the Good Lord.”

…consider this statement made by the co-host of NPR’s On the Media:

“If you were to somehow poll the political orientation of everybody in the NPR news organization and all of the member stations, you would find an overwhelmingly progressive, liberal crowd.”

In the “overwhelmingly” liberal bubble that is NPR, executives were appalled at Juan Williams comment to Bill O’Reilly that ““When I get on a plane … if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried, I get nervous.

This was so bigoted, in their view, that they had to fire Mr. Williams.  In a statement explaining why they did it, NPR said:  Williams’ words “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”

But these same sensitive liberal souls let Nina Totenberg, NPR’s Legal Affairs  correspondent, go on a Sunday talk show each week and spout all sorts of liberal nonsense.  Who could forget her shot at then Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a comment for which she later apologized.  If there was “retributive justice,” in the world, Ms. Totenberg said, Jesse Helms would “get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it.”

Inside the liberal bubble Juan Williams is a bigot.  Nina Totenberg isn’t.

That’s one of the many reasons it matters if a newsroom is “overwhelmingly” liberal – or conservative.

…read more…

 Here are some other examples that Glenn Beck so astutely explains in 10-minutes:

Here are some examples — out of the many — from people like Dennis Prager, MRC’s montage of yearly examples, and Larry Elder’s example of Hollywood bias.